Samsung Galaxy S8 Release Date Confirmed: 2017 Flagship Introduces Infinity Display And Facial Recognition

Samsung announced the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus smartphones Wednesday morning at a launch event in New York City. Samsung mobile chief, DJ Koh was met with a round of applause as he took the stage to discuss what he calls “a new era of smartphone design.”

The Samsung Galaxy S8 features a 5.8-inch Quad HD dual-edge curved display, while the Galax S8 Plus features a 6.2-inch display. With the physical home button removed and embedded underneath the glass, the devices have an 18.9.5 aspect ratio and screens that are 83 percent functional display. This updated design also allows the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus to be smaller in size than predecessor devices.

“The Galaxy S8 is slimmer than Galaxy S7 but with a bigger screen than Galaxy S7 Edge,” Samsung Sr. Director of Product Marketing, Andrew Blackard told press in a briefing prior to the smartphone launch.

The Galaxy S8 devices will also feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 or Exynos 8895 chip, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage with microSD expansion up to 256GB, a 12-megapixel rear camera and 8-megapixel front camera, both with f/1.7 aperture, USB-C and IP68 water, wind and dust resistance. The Galaxy S8 will run a 3,000mAh battery, while the Galaxy S8 Plus will run a 3,500mAh battery. Both devices will run Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box.

The Galaxy S8 devices feature Samsung’s signature fingerprint scanner, but also feature the iris scanner first introduced on the Galaxy Note 7 as well as a facial recognition scanner. Samsung also confirmed its proprietary AI personal assistant feature, called Bixby, which will rival other virtual mechanisms, like Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa.

Samsung also showcased a new product called Samsung Dex as well as updates to its Gear VR and Gear 360 accessories.